


Trapped (in her American circumstance)

by Verasteine



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Childhood, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-13
Updated: 2011-07-13
Packaged: 2017-10-21 14:19:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verasteine/pseuds/Verasteine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Mary knows her brother. And this is not what Steve does.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Trapped (in her American circumstance)

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by "Rattlesnakes", by Tori Amos, though Lloyd Cole wrote the song, and it's therefore technically his.
> 
> Inspired by a throwaway line in [Strategies and Tactics](http://rm.livejournal.com/2086222.html), by [](http://rm.livejournal.com/profile)[**rm**](http://rm.livejournal.com/). Much gratitude to [](http://eumelia.livejournal.com/profile)[**eumelia**](http://eumelia.livejournal.com/) and [](http://kilawater.livejournal.com/profile)[**kilawater**](http://kilawater.livejournal.com/) for the handholding, read throughs, and feedback, to [](http://smirnoffmule.livejournal.com/profile)[**smirnoffmule**](http://smirnoffmule.livejournal.com/) for going above and beyond and never letting me fall, and [](http://alba17.livejournal.com/profile)[**alba17**](http://alba17.livejournal.com/) for the beta polish.

The women are looking at him again.

Mary sees them out of the corners of her eyes, watches the way they pause with a drink halfway to their mouth, gaze tracking her big brother around the garden. It's subtle, from under lashes and bangs, and never long enough to betray their distraction to whomever they're talking to.

Steve doesn't notice.

He's oblivious in ways that makes Mary wonder about the two years between them; it shouldn't be her who figures it out, shouldn't feel like she's older than him.

She glances around at her parents; her father is manning the grill, two men standing around talking to him, so clearly cops that Mary rolls her eyes. Her mother is chatting to a group of women, carefully playing the hostess, drifting from circle to circle. Her smile is genuine and wide, making Mary wonder how she can stomach it all. What does she like about this?

Neither of them seems to notice.

She watches as one of the women disentangles herself from the group and approaches Steve. A hand on his arm, a soft smile on her face, and Steve smiles back, unconcerned, unaware. She engages him in conversation, and Steve replies, animatedly. The topic is probably football, Mary thinks unkindly.

Her brother is the football star, her brother is the good kid, with good grades in school and teachers who dote on him, and the one time he got in trouble was when he beat up the senior year bully. That's Steve; that's what Mary has to live up to, and she refuses to.

Steve's offered to help her with her school work, offered with a genuine interest that she wants to hate him for, but she can't, because even in the throes of her teenage years, she knows it's not his fault. He's the football star where she's a mediocre long distance runner, the almost straight A student where she scrapes Bs and Cs, the guy all the girls at Kukui want to date.

She's seen them, in the hallways, by the practice fields when the Kings are training, flashing a bit too much leg or cleavage, forced smiles trying to hide how much they want to be chosen. Steve is not oblivious to that, he knows, he went out with Joanna McCain a few times, but that ended a few weeks ago and he's been moody ever since.

Mary's snuck out of the house more than once to hook up with Jason Kim, who's in Steve's year, and if either her brother or her father found out about _that_ she'd be grounded till the end of time. She wonders idly, as she watches the woman's hand still resting on her brother's arm, if Steve's had sex yet. He could have, if he'd wanted to, and yet she thinks he hasn't. Guess she beat him to the finish line at something, then.

She looks out at the sea, takes another sip of her lemonade and wishes she could have beer without someone blowing a gasket. Do her parents really think she isn't drinking yet? Do they know how easy it is to come by alcohol? Her father has to know, with the way he spends less time at home than he does cleaning up Hawaii.

"Mary!"

It's her father calling her name, ironically, and she turns away and heads towards the grill. "What?"

She sees the vein at his temple twitch, knows he's not berating her for her tone only because they're in company, and wants to laugh at him. She bites her lip instead.

"Can you get the soda from the basement, please?"

She likes to call his tone the _imperial voice of command_ , behind his back, and Steve hates it, twitches at the disrespect. She doesn't look up to their father nearly as much as he does, doesn't get why Steve loves home so much and never wants to leave. She would go if she didn't know that every cop in Oahu would be ready to haul her back before she'd get to the end of the street. "Why me? Can't Steve do it?"

"I asked _you_."

Oh, fine. She can't be in the doghouse with her dad, she's got a date with Jason next week and if he watches her every move she's not going to be able to get away. She shrugs, turns towards the house without answering him, and trudges down the basement steps to haul two bottles of Coke back upstairs.

By the time she's done setting them up on the table and pouring drinks for everyone who's been waiting, it's ten minutes later, and she looks around the yard.

Her mother's with another circle, same bright smile that Mary couldn't fake no matter how much someone paid her, her dad's at the grill, talking with the spatula still in his hand, and her brother's nowhere to be seen.

The woman who had the hand on his arm is nowhere in sight, either.

She heads across the garden to the other side of the house, but there's no sign of Steve there, either. He's probably just gone inside to get himself a drink, take a breather from the constant conversation and sound around them.

Except that's what Mary does, not Steve. Steve takes after their mother, is the perfect host, makes nice with people. Steve actually _cares_.

Something cold crawls up Mary's spine, despite the heat, and she tells herself she's being ridiculous.

She heads inside the house, telling herself she's just going to see where he's got to, whine at him because she can, pick a fight with him for sheer entertainment value. There's nothing else going on. She just wants a distraction.

He's not on the ground floor, and she thinks he must be changing his shirt or something. Maybe he spilled something on his clothes while she was inside, maybe he wants to go for a swim. It's ridiculous, swimming while there's a party going on, but Steve, Steve goes for a swim at six am. Maybe one of the other kids wants to go in and Steve'll play lifeguard.

She climbs the steps slowly, her feet feeling heavy and her neck damp with cold sweat. She gets to her brother's room, knocks on the door. "Steve?"

No response, and she opens the door, looks inside. His room is empty, no sign of him anywhere, no sign of the clothes he was wearing, either. His football kit is right by the door and his bed's haphazardly made, his room looking the same as it always does.

She backs out, closing the door behind her.

There's a sound coming from across the landing, and suddenly, Mary wonders if she shouldn't turn around and head back down the stairs. It's her brother, he makes his own choices, Steve can take care of himself, and it's none of her business, anyway.

Except...

She stands, frozen in indecision, trying to make a choice between likely embarrassing herself and her brother, or walking away and ignoring the feeling that's still creeping up her spine.

She turns away from the stairs and heads for the bathroom, praying that her brother had the sense to lock the door, praying that that woman didn't.

She turns the knob and it gives, and she yanks the door open fast, like ripping off a band aid.

Steve's pressed back against the vanity, pants halfway undone, and the woman, _Laura, Mrs. Martinez_ , Mary's brain suddenly provides, has got her hand wrapped around Steve's erection. Steve has fingers wrapped around her other wrist, her manicured nails in stark relief against his skin. Mary wants to laugh, wants to kick herself over her paranoia, can feel her face heat with embarrassment.

Until Steve turns his head and meets her eyes.

Her mouth is already forming words, she begins to say, "I'm sor--" and falters when she recognises the look on brother's face.

Steve's pushing Laura Martinez away now, and that woman is still as cool as a cucumber, though Mary can see the beginnings of a blush creep up under her perfect foundation. She's not sure what she just walked into, but she's sure about one thing. "I think," Mary says, "you need to leave."

Her voice is dripping with the same cold Mary can still feel clenched around her spine, the icy grip of fear that hasn't let go yet. A part of her doesn't want this to be real, tries to keep telling herself that it's just Steve fooling around, it's what he does, right, it's what she does too.

Mary knows her brother. And it's not what Steve does.

"Excuse me," Laura Martinez says, and straightens her clothes with barely a flick of her hand before brushing past Mary and heading calmly down the stairs.

Steve sags, and Mary steps into the bathroom and pulls the door shut, flicking the lock. "What the hell, Steve?"

He turns away, doing his pants back up, and Mary can't decide whether to be mad at him or offer a hug. She realises her heart is racing, she's sweated through her shirt, and she ends up putting a hand on Steve's shoulder.

He flinches under her touch, and it makes her dig her fingers in and make him turn around. He ducks his head, not meeting her eyes, and the bottom drops out of her stomach.

"Oh, man, Steve," she whispers, and finally just hugs her brother.

He accepts the embrace, holding her close and breathing silently into her hair, and when she pulls back, she says, "Are you okay?"

"Mare," he says urgently instead of answering her question, "you can't tell anyone. You can't tell mom and dad."

She looks at him, watches the way he ducks her gaze. "Okay, okay," she promises, "Steve, I get it, it's okay."

He meets her eyes. "It got out of hand," he says, and his voice goes raspy and his eyes are red, and Mary understands, suddenly, way too well how he feels.

"I know," she whispers. And then she knows she has to pay it forward, has to do what Mrs. Hemoa in the English department did for her. "It's not your fault," she says slowly.

It seems to shake something in him; he's staring at her, wide eyed and helpless, so vulnerable that she can't believe it's her big brother, who's not afraid of anything.

"Steve..." she starts, and then there are footsteps on the stairs, the heavy tread of boots and her father's voice, "Steve! Mary! Where the hell are you?"

Steve puts a hand over his mouth, and she hisses, "Stay here."

She slips out of the bathroom, pushing the door shut behind her. "What? You don't have to yell, you know, I have ears."

"Don't take that tone with me, Mary."

She thinks suddenly that her father would like her better if she was intimidated by him, and hates him a little. "Whatever."

"Where's your brother?"

"I don't know. What am I, his keeper? He's probably somewhere in the garden, playing the perfect son." _That's why you love him so much. Because he_ is _intimidated by you_.

There's so much crowding her mind, and she wonders if this is what people mean when they say, "That's when I had to grow up." She feels much too old for her skin, like she's forced to play three levels out of her league.

"Mary, we really have to talk about your attitude. You can't just go through life..."

She tunes him out, thinks about Steve falling apart behind the door that's at her back, thinks about the words and names that exist for the things that happened today, can't fit them inside her mind.

"...Mary, are you listening to me?"

She drags her eyes up to her father's face. "Yeah, yeah, I'll behave."

She doesn't miss how her father's shoulders tense. There was a time that scared her. But the time that she could be scared by simple things feels a long, long way behind her now.


End file.
